My understanding was that there were several attempts to develop what would later become the internet we understand today. I know the US really took off with it, but I think the USSR deserves some credit.
In USSR, the first computer networks appeared in the 1950s in missile defense system at Sary Shagan. In the 1960s, the massive computer network project called OGAS was proposed but failed to be implemented. Apollo–Soyuz USA–USSR joint space program (1972–1975) used digital data for spaceships transmitted between two countries. Since the late 1970s, X.25 Soviet networks began to appear and Academset emerged in Leningrad in 1978.
Arpanet was beginning to be constructed only after the Soviet network models were known to the actors involved in creating ARPANET. Though the idea to connect things via metal wasn't new, the idea to have controllers and nodes wasn't new, either. Still were good ideas and natural results from the material conditions and problems arising from those systems.
My understanding was that there were several attempts to develop what would later become the internet we understand today. I know the US really took off with it, but I think the USSR deserves some credit.
From Wikipedia
Arpanet was beginning to be constructed only after the Soviet network models were known to the actors involved in creating ARPANET. Though the idea to connect things via metal wasn't new, the idea to have controllers and nodes wasn't new, either. Still were good ideas and natural results from the material conditions and problems arising from those systems.